As we covered in detail yesterday, teachers at a Catholic school in Carlow were targeted with a bizarre fake news story these past few days, alleging that students were told not to dress provocatively lest they ‘distract’ their male teachers.
The reaction to the story descended into slander, threats of violence and even people calling for jail time for the teachers.
The journalist involved has since deleted their tweets that had repeated the claims of a parent on Facebook. It now remains to be seen as to what legal avenues the school will take in order to address this issue.
However, heavy criticism is now being aimed at Aodhan O’Riordain of Labour and Hazel Chu of the Green Party. O’Riordain, a long time advocate of trying to limit the influence of Catholic schools, joined the pile on and has not yet issued a public apology.
Hazel Chu, who fulfills the archaic and unelected colonial title of ‘Mayor of Dublin’, also jumped on the bandwagon. Ms. Chu’s Green Party were themselves involved in a scandal that rocked the country during the summer, after images emerged of controversial sex campaigner Peter Tatchell with Green Party Minister for Children Roderic O’ Gorman. At the time, the Greens accused anyone who asked for an apology of being ‘homophobic’. Ms. Chu, who was amongst those demanding understanding for O’Gorman, was reluctant to offer the same to these teachers.
In recent months, the behaviour of Irish politicians (particularly left wing ones) on social media has become increasingly erratic, rude and vulgar. Many abuse their public positions on social media to shame others, to spread lies and to whip up hate mobs. The Oireachtas needs to enact emergency legislation to stop people like Aodhan O’Riordain and Hazel Chu using their social media in such a negative and irresponsible manner.
It would be unbecoming of bishops to get involved in a Twitter spat with these individuals, but they should make clear that this sort of irresponsible targeting of staff in Catholic schools is simply not acceptable. Any of these staff members could have been harmed by unhinged members of the public or could have harmed themselves with the stress of public slander. With so much talk of ‘mental health’ and ‘well being’, perhaps some plain old morality is what these politicians and their Twitter hate mobs actually need.